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Hillary's secret weapon ... Republican guards

POLITICIANS are used to being accompanied by bodyguards. Hillary Clinton has an extra shield: a Republican guard protecting her from accusations that she is too left-wing. Her mission to persuade voters that she is centrist enough to become president in 2008 depends on the company she keeps.

Clinton, a Democrat senator for New York, rarely takes a step in public or a policy initiative without being surrounded by Republicans. It is disarming her opponents and helping to polish her image as a moderate with a realistic prospect of winning the White House.

Clinton spent last week in “baked Alaska”, which has been experiencing record high temperatures, to investigate one of the left’s favourite causes, global warming. Her travelling companions were three Republican senators: John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins.

Together they agreed, in the words of McCain, that there was “overwhelming scientific evidence” of climate change and that “human